


5+1

by heybinnie



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Gen, OT6, kind of something like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heybinnie/pseuds/heybinnie
Summary: five times jinjin was their pillar of support, and the one time they were his.alternatively, jinjin hears them cry at night.





	1. Chapter 1

1.

Jinjin wakes up with a jolt.

He stares at the bottom of the top bunk for several seconds, mind still in a bit of a daze and eyes blearily blinking into the darkness. He runs a tired hand down his face before pushing back his hair, frowning and squinting at the boards above his head. He doesn’t understand. There is no reason he should be waking up at _what_ o’clock in the morning–

Beside him, Sanha shakes.

Jinjin puts his hand back to his side calmly and stares blankly at nothing. He listens to the sounds coming from his left. They aren’t even sniffles; just very, very quiet hiccups that are barely there, and tiny whines that abruptly cut off and are muffled into the sheets.

He’s reminded suddenly of his older brother. Jinjin remembers listening to quiet sniffles beside him at night and having no idea what to do. He feels his heart ache. _It hurts,_ he thinks, but it isn’t hurting as bad as Sanha’s.

_Sanha_. Jinjin takes a deep breath. He isn’t the little brother anymore. Heck, he’s the older brother of four dumb, talented boys, and _Sanha_ –

Jinjin slowly rolls over and carefully rests a hand on the trembling back. The lean, lanky body freezes as Sanha yelps and instantly shuts up. He starts moving his hand in a poor attempt of a back rub, moving in circles before eventually coming to rest just below the collar of Sanha’s shirt.

He pats that spot gently. “Hey,” Jinjin murmurs into the night, “I’m here. I’m right here.”

Then Sanha’s shaking all over again and curling impossibly further, hiccups smothered into his pillow and tears soaking the sheets, and Jinjin starts rubbing his back again and quietly shushing him like his mother did when he was younger and he thought that nobody could hear him. He does that for a few minutes, half an hour, two hours; he doesn’t know, but eventually the back rubs turn into gentle pats, and the trembling dies down.

Jinjin closes his eyes when he finally hears Sanha quietly snoring. He doesn’t pull his hand away. Instead, he takes a deep breath and continues to pat Sanha’s back. Jinjin falls asleep just like that.

He wakes up that same morning facing the wall when he feels a finger on his back. It spells out _thank you_ before the finger disappears and the body behind him makes a ruckus rushing out of bed and into the shower. Jinjin can’t help but smile into his pillow; just this once, he’s thankful he’s known as the last one to wake up.

And if he notices that Sanha has been asking for more back rubs lately, he smiles and complies and doesn’t say anything about it.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Jinjin comes back to the company building earlier than everyone else. He’s got his favourite drink in a hand and Rocky’s in the other, ready to spring into the room and present them to the fellow rapper who had opted to stay behind. A small part of him wonders why. Another part of him says it’s probably just the fatigue from today’s training session.

He steps into the tiny space just outside their training room and peers through the glass. Jinjin expects Rocky to be lounging on the couch right below the window or dancing to a song blasting from his phone.

What he doesn’t expect is Rocky sitting in the middle of the floor, hunched over himself and cradling his head in a hand. Jinjin frowns, worry getting the better of him, when Rocky leans back to run his fingers through his hair and Jinjin spots the phone in his hands. He sighs. _Geez, Rocky, almost gave me a heart attack–_

Then Rocky abruptly gets to his feet. Jinjin ducks out of sight, drinks still in both hands, and jerks when he hears something hit the wall right beside his head.

He frowns. He waddles to the first door and gently opens it with his elbow and watches, through the blue glass of the second door as he stands in the tiny entryway, as Rocky paces across the room, messing up his hair as a nervous habit.

Jinjin jerks again when Rocky suddenly punches the opposite wall, then walks back to the centre of the room and just… starts dancing.

To no music.

Jinjin takes a deep breath, then turns the handle with his elbow again. He spots Rocky eyeing him out of the corner of his eye.

“Hyung,” Rocky murmurs, pausing mid-dance.

Jinjin nods in response, gesturing to the drink he has for him. He sets the drinks down on the table as Rocky resumes his dancing–without music–and pauses at the sight of the phone on the table. Jinjin stares at it for a beat before realising it’s the cause of the earlier thunk beside his head.

He picks it up, unlocks it, and youtube is open on the screen, a paused video of their performance at one of the shows they did this week, and Jinjin realises–

A hand darts out to snatch the phone away. “Sorry,” Rocky mutters as he locks the phone and carelessly flings it onto the couch.

Then he walks back to the middle of the room and starts dancing again.

Jinjin stares at him. He watches Rocky nail down all the moves, every single one of them, eyes focused on his own reflection in the mirror and looking at every detail.

Then Rocky misses a move by mere seconds and ends up stumbling, and Jinjin hears the low curse that slips out. Rocky picks himself right back up and starts all over again and while it may have seemed admirable, it hurts, and Jinjin can’t stand it.

“Rocky,” he says, and Rocky resolutely does not answer, sweat dusting his forehead.

“Rocky-ah.”

Rocky’s reaching the same point of the dance. He’s still doing well, he’s got everything down–

“Park Minhyuk!”

Rocky still isn’t listening. And then he’s stumbling and swearing under his breath and picking himself right back up to start all over again–

Jinjin walks over and wraps his arms around the taller boy. Rocky puts up a fight; he stands straight and rigid and starts to push his hyung away, tries to pull out of the tight embrace, tells Jinjin to please get off, get off of me, let me go–

“You are human,” Jinjin says quietly. “You are human. Give yourself a break.”

Rocky doesn’t say anything for a long while and Jinjin does not let go. Then he feels the body in his arms sag as all the tension seems to seep out, and Rocky leans heavily against his hyung and buries his face into a strong shoulder. Jinjin holds him for a long time and ignores the wet patch that forms against his skin.

An hour later, the rest find both of them huddled on the couch, sipping their drinks and watching their old Ddocas. Sanha yells and squeezes himself onto the couch beside Rocky, Eunwoo decides to make a seat out of Jinjin, and Bin lies himself across Rocky and Sanha’s laps and peers up at Rocky to pat at his cheek gently.

If anyone notices that Rocky’s eyes are a little red, and that he’s quieter than usual, and that there’s wet patch on Jinjin’s shoulder where Rocky refuses to move away from–

They don’t say anything about it and tell him they love him very much. Jinjin smiles at the way Rocky grows embarrassed and tells everyone to shut up, and although Eunwoo is attempting to choke him to death, he settles farther into the couch and clicks on the next video.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Jinjin wakes up at the ungodly hour of 2.46am for the bathroom. He groans into his pillow before starting the painstaking process of getting out of bed, almost getting himself kicked in the face by Sanha’s long legs. He nearly slams the door shut on his way in. 

When he’s done, Jinjin decides to grab a glass of water, so he pads out into the living room towards the kitchen sink.

Then he hears it. It’s–sniffling, and little gasps that normally would’ve been barely audible, but seem to echo across the dorm in the quiet hours of the night. There’s a particularly loud exhale, then a sob, and then more gasps. Jinjin feels his heart ache.

It’s not anyone in his shared room, because he remembers Rocky’s foot over the edge and MJ’s tractor-snores, and it’s definitely not Sanha. So it’s either Eunwoo or Binnie.

He pads towards the other room. He grabs the knob, takes a deep breath and pushes the door open.

Eunwoo is fast asleep.

Jinjin shuts the door quietly and exhales through his teeth. He listens to the sound of Binnie crying, and feels like crying with him.

15 minutes later the bathroom door opens. Back towards the rest of the dorm, Jinjin captures every sound; a quiet sniffle, the footsteps that abruptly stop.

“…Jinjinie-hyung?”

Jinjin turns his head to smile. “Oh, Binnie.”

And turns back quickly because Bin looks horrible, his hair a mess and eyes red and puffy. There’s a droplet on his chin that Jinjin really hopes is just water from washing his face.

“Hyung? What– what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He pours in the hot water. “I’m making ramen.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“It’s– 3am.”

“And?”

“…Manager-nim will kill you.”

“ _If_  he finds out, which he won’t. Come here, I’m making you a bowl.”

That’s how they find themselves sitting on the floor and slurping on their noodles, backs propped up against the counter cabinets. There’s a comfortable silence that sits with them until Jinjin says, “Can’t sleep?”

Bin shakes his head.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Bin swallows. “Not really.”

Jinjin nods. The quiet of the night stretches on as they eat, and he’s halfway through his ramen when he hears it again; very, very subtle sniffling. He glances at Bin and feels everything in his chest twist and shatter because Bin’s cheeks are wet, and he’s trying to cover it up by inhaling his food with his head bowed and shoulders hunched. Jinjin pushes away his bowl and wraps an arm around the trembling frame.

Bin drops his chopsticks and puts a hand over his eyes. “Hyung–” he says, voice soft and cracking. Jinjin wants to scream. “I–I’m–”

“You don’t have to tell me now,” Jinjin murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere. Hey, I’m not going anywhere.”

Bin doesn’t say anything. He picks up his chopsticks and shoves more noodles into his mouth, hiccuping and wiping at his face. Jinjin is content with running his hand across a strong, muscular back that he sometimes forgets is two years younger than his, and has seen the walls of training rooms for years longer than he has. Idly, he wonders how anyone could stick around for so long.

10 minutes, 15, half an hour. They stay there until Bin gulps down the last of his noodles. Then it’s quiet again until Jinjin says, “If it’s the ramen, I’m sorry I can’t make them as good as Eunwoo.”

Bin huffs out a laugh, shoves him with a shoulder and tells him to shut up. Jinjin smiles and offers him his own bowl of unfinished ramen.

The next day, if anyone noticed Bin’s swollen eyes and the two clean, empty bowls left in the sink, nobody says anything about it. They give Bin numerous pats on his back until he tells everyone he’s fine, and although he’s working on it, that’s fine. They’re there for him.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Jinjin looks up at the clean, dim ceiling of his shared hotel room from where he lies quietly in bed. He stares at it blankly, refusing to let his mind wander. He drums his fingers against his stomach and takes a deep breath.

_“I’m worried about– being a nuisance to the team.”_

He exhales sharply, like a punch has been blown to the face.

For a brief moment, Jinjin wonders what the hell he’s doing. It’s been ten minutes since he’d walked in on Eunwoo having his time with little Chemi, ten minutes since he realised that was Eunwoo talking, realised his voice was shaky and trembling and saying he felt like a nuisance. It’s been ten minutes since he walked out the second Eunwoo said he hopes everything will be fine.

He’s angry at himself for a short moment, then tells himself he’s being stupid.  _Being angry won’t help matters,_  he muses and closes his eyes.

Eventually, Eunwoo walks in. Jinjin listens to the quiet footsteps and feels the bed beside his own dip. There’s a pause before he hears the shift of blankets, and suddenly there’s a quiet murmur of “Rest well, hyung.” Then the light goes off.

He opens his eyes. He rolls onto his side and sees Eunwoo’s back, all cosy and warm and says, “You tell yourself to rest well, too. How about that?”

There is silence for a few long minutes. “…did you hear everything?”

“No,” he replies. Well, technically, it’s not a lie. “Not really.”

There’s no answer to that. Jinjin watches as the body in front of him seems to shrink. “It must be tiring,” he says without thinking.

“We’re all here, hyung. We’re all tired–”

“No.” He places a hand on the lean back. “It must be so  _tiring_.”

There is another long, long silence. Then Eunwoo starts turning and looking at him with glassy eyes.

“Just sometimes,” Eunwoo whispers. “It’s tiring only sometimes.”

“Ah, you… Really…” Jinjin sighs. “It’s okay to admit you’re tired. It’s fine to let us know.”

“I don’t  _want_  you to know. I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m already–”

 _A nuisance,_  Jinjin’s mind unhelpfully supplies. He tells it to shut up.

Eunwoo hesitates. “…you’ve all got enough on your shoulders as it is. I can handle my own responsibilities.”

“Eunwoo.”

“And it’s not that bad after a while. I’m getting used to it.”

“Yah, Eunwoo.”

“I think I’m getting better, too. At– at dancing, I mean, and singing. So that’s good, that’s easier for–”

“You’re not an inconvenience,” Jinjin says softly. “Not a burden, not an inconvenience. You’re you– Lee Dongmin and  _then_  Cha Eunwoo, and you’re trying your best. Isn’t that what matters?”

He stares back at Eunwoo staring at him, and continues, “We want to help but don’t know how, so– we hover around you. Mess with you to make you feel at home. Unless…we’re doing it wrong, which I’ll apologise for–”

“Why are you apologising,” Eunwoo mutters, voice cracking and betraying him. He blinks and abruptly pulls the blanket over his head and keeps it that way. “ _Why_ are you apologising. Stop it.”

There’s a tiny sniffle. Jinjin smiles. “We love you, don’t you know that?”

“Shut up, hyung.”

“We love you more than anything– maybe not more than Arohas, but–”

Eunwoo reaches out blindly to squash a palm over his leader’s face. Jinjin swats it away with a laugh and pats the arm protruding out of a lump of blankets. “Alright, alright. Go to sleep, you big baby. Have a good rest.”

The next morning, if anyone noticed Eunwoo falling asleep more than once on Jinjin’s shoulder, no one says anything about it. They throw their jackets over him and run their fingers through his hair and tell him, even when asleep, to rest well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao if u cant tell im putting all these up in one go bc im lazy like that


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Jinjin stirs awake at the ungodly hour of three in the morning, breaking through his slumber like a bubble popping in the sun. He blinks blearily at the wall, trying to figure out why he’s awake this _late_ , and then tries to figure out why _MJ_ is awake this late; he’s pretty sure those are his hyung’s feet dangling over the edge of the upper bunk.

So he’s understandably confused when MJ drops to the floor on his feet lightly and pads out of their shared room. He slips out quietly, barely making a noise for someone so loud, and shuts the door behind him with a soft click. Jinjin’s pushing himself up before he knows it.

He wanders out into the living room with his blanket around his shoulders. The lights are all off, and the bathroom is empty, and Jinjin is so confused because he can’t find MJ anywhere, where the heck is his dumb hyung–

He does a double take at the balcony doors and sees a tiny opening. Jinjin blinks and heads straight for it without thinking, and slides the door open.

MJ sits with his back to the dorm, slumped in the corner against the wall. He looks up from his phone in surprise, hand flying to his heart, blinking back at Jinjin who’s squinting at him with a frown.

Jinjin makes a confused sound, something along the lines of a “Mmh?” before stepping towards his hyung and heaving down his bulk beside him. He forces himself into the tiny space between MJ and the glass doors and huddles right up to the only source of warmth, and sits there for a moment in silence, eyes squeezing shut in a half-awake daze.

Then he turns to MJ and says, “Hyung, what the heck?”

“What the heck yourself,” MJ laughs. “What are you doing up?”

“What are _you_ doing up?”

“Good question.”

“Don’t ‘good question’ me. What are you doing up?”

MJ hums and goes back to his phone. Jinjin has to squint at the brightness of the screen and feels his eyes sting. “My eyes are on fire. Turn it down.”

He ignores the scoff beside him and closes his eyes. Jinjin shivers in the night and tugs his blanket closer, then frowns when his sluggish mind shouts out at him. He sits up and throws the blanket over his and MJ’s torsos. MJ accepts the warmth readily.

“Why are you sitting outside?” Jinjin mumbles. “It’s cold. You’ll freeze.”

“I won’t.”

“You have the worst tolerance to the cold, hyung.”

“I’m fine. You fuss too much, you mother hen.”

“Why are you even here?”

There’s a pause. “Good question,” MJ says. “Why _am_ I here?”

There’s another pause. “Hyung…”

“Just kidding!” There’s no mirth there at all. “I just wanted some fresh, cold air. Heard it’s good for my skin or something.”

“You already have good skin.”

MJ ignores him. “Hey, I found a song a few days ago. Wanna hear it?”

“Only if you sing it.”

MJ ignores him again. “Let me look it up on youtube–”

“No,” Jinjin grumbles. He huddles closer to the body beside him. “I want you to sing it.”

“Jinwoo–”

“ _Sing it,_ dammit, before I sing the damn song right now and wake everyone up.”

MJ snorts. “You don’t even know the song,” he mutters, but searches up for the lyrics. “And you’re so vulgar when you’re cranky. What would the kids do if they heard such foul language?”

“Let Eunwoo beat me up later.”

“Ah, you’re dumb.” There’s a pause. “You know what, I’ll just–”

“No videos. _Sing_ , hyung.”

MJ sighs, and parts his lips to sing.

Jinjin closes his eyes and lets the gentle voice wash over him, a lovely, soothing melody murmured into the night. He leans into MJ’s side heavily and props his head back against the wall, listening to every lilt in the song and hanging on to every word uttered to the wind. He breathes in deeply at the soft notes drifting in the air around him, loving the way they dance with the breeze.

And then it stops. Jinjin makes a sound of protest. “That’s it?”

“Of course that’s it. What else do you want?” MJ huffs a laugh.

“I don’t know, _more?_ ”

“You’re an idiot. I’ll play you the song–”

“I think you sang it well, hyung. Like you do with every other song. Your voice is great and makes me feel warm even though my butt is freezing on the floor, and I wish every day that the whole world will find out just how good you are.”

“Yah–”

“And I also wish every day that you knew how good you are, too,” Jinjin tells him.

“Shut up.”

“You’re great, hyung.”

“I said shut up, Jinwoo.”

“I look up to you a lot,” Jinjin mumbles. “Wish you knew that, too.”

MJ doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment. He continues to mess with his phone, opening and closing tabs and looking through the same fancafe pages again and again, scrolling through their Twitter until he couldn’t scroll any farther–

And reaches up to rub at his eyes silently. Jinjin sighs and plucks the phone out of his hyung’s grip, gently patting his thigh when he starts to scrub at his face furiously. MJ keeps wiping and rubbing with his hands before pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, and holds them there for a while. He takes a deep, shaky breath and tucks his legs closer to his body, and doesn’t say anything even as Jinjin pulls him close to his side.

Jinjin just holds him for a few minutes, feeling the frame beside his take deep breaths, before suddenly saying, “Wanna make hot chocolate and watch a really bad movie?”

“It’s 3am, idiot,” MJ huffs.

“Who cares? We have the day off tomorrow.”

MJ doesn’t say anything. Jinjin’s about to change his mind when there’s a soft murmur of “Make my hot chocolate for me.”

“Okay, hyung,” Jinjin laughs and gently pulls him to his feet. He pushes him into the living room and slides the balcony doors shut behind him.

When Eunwoo wakes up at 10am that morning for the bathroom, he does a double take at what he sees. He blinks at the way his two hyungs are huddled up against the wall, slumped against each other on the floor with empty mugs pushed to one side. The laptop is open on Jinjin’s thigh, and Eunwoo barely manages to save it when Jinjin shifts and almost topples it to the floor.

He looks up at them and sees the way MJ’s eyes are puffy, and quietly puts away the laptop. Eunwoo places the mugs in the sink and gently pulls the blanket higher over their shoulders, before wandering back to his room to grab a post-it and a pen.

And when the younger ones wake up to a note saying  _‘hyungs are sleeping outside. wake them up and you’ll get it from me’_ on their doors, they don’t say anything about it. They go right back to bed and hope instead that their hyungs have a good sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ten years later..... i show up with this.......... this was surprisingly a little hard to write!!  
> let's hope i dont disappear for ten more years :')


	6. 5+ the 1 we need = ASTRO

Park Jinwoo walks up the steps to his shared dorm with a slowness that is unfamiliar to even himself. He keeps his head down and shoulders hunched like as if he’s sorry for being there, as if trying to hide from the night and swallows around the lump in his throat as he stuffs his key into the door.

MJ and Sanha are the first things he sees. They’re wrestling for the living room toilet, a foot each already halfway in, and they both look up at him in unison with matching looks of surprise. Jinjin first sees their twinkling eyes and the way their lips are threatening to spill laughs, and their eyebags and mussed hair second.

It’s the latter that gets to him more. He listens to his heart twist and groan in his chest and says, “I’ll be back later,” and walks right back out the door.

He bites down on his tongue as he leaves the building. He pulls his hood up and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, trying to will away the pain in his chest. He does everything he can to distract himself: count the number of cracks in the pavement, try to find the stars in the sky. He exhales sharply when none of it works and his heart whines again, so he starts humming softly himself.

It’s an aimless tune, a broken song he makes up as he walks, barely audible for anyone passing by to hear. He walks and hums and tries to push out every other thought from his head, tries not to think about his pathetic attempt to calm his heart. Instead, Jinjin hears the hint of desperation trickling into his voice, until it gets so loud it rings in his head and he has to stop at the end of the sidewalk.

He crouches, buries his face into his palms and takes a bunch of deep breaths, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes.

“ _No_ ,” he mutters to himself. “No, no, no, no, no, stop, _stop_ , don’t cry, don’t cry, _don’t cry, stop–_ ”

His phone rings. Jinjin ignores it, sucking in sharp breaths through his teeth, whimpering ever so slightly when his heart twists again. He ducks his head, hands still pressed against his eyelids and breathes in slowly and deeply. In and out. In and out. One, two, three, four…

He counts to a hundred and fifteen when a shiver racks through his frame. Jinjin opens his eyes, blinking away the fuzzy fireworks playing with his vision until he can see 7-11 across the street, and takes one final, deep breath before sighing.

Then he realises there isn’t supposed to be a 7-11 anywhere _near_ their dorm. He has no idea where he is, crouched on a pavement across a convenience store at– _what time is it?_ He checks his phone.

It’s 2.20am. Huh. He’s sure he reached the dorm at half past one.

He sighs again and sits down on the curb. He looks through his missed calls; there’s four from Eunwoo, six from Sanha, a good nine from MJ, and he’s staring at his call log blankly when his screen suddenly blacks out.

His phone is dead. Jinjin closes his eyes and rests his forehead on his knees, and just sits there.

He sits there for a long time. The rational part of him says that he should get up right now and head back, tell everyone he’s fine and that he’s sorry for suddenly going MIA and make sure everyone goes to bed. He has to go make sure Eunwoo isn’t reading his scripts and Bin isn’t watching their previous stages, has to check that MJ is actually sleeping and not pretending, that Rocky isn’t dozing off with his face mask still on, that Sanha remembers to turn off the bathroom lights–

The other quiet, tired part of him says that he’s allowed to be irrational for once. It tells him it’s okay to have bad days and be selfish every once in a while, and something in Jinjin _breaks_ because he doesn’t think he can afford it. He doesn’t think he deserves that kind of luxury, not when he isn’t able to be a good leader for his members, to be a good older brother for four younger boys and be someone who can look out for the eldest and have his back.

His chest tightens painfully again. For a second, he hates the rest of them for picking him to be the leader when he’s so— _him_.

“JINJIN!”

He jolts, looking over his shoulder, and there’s a blur of red and yellow hurtling right towards him and suddenly he’s staring into familiar brown eyes. It takes him a moment to realise it’s MJ, crouched in front of him on the asphalt and holding his shoulders tightly, shaking him a little with an urgency that isn’t like him. It takes Jinjin another moment to realise that his hyung has been saying something for a while now, brows furrowed and eyes brimming with worry and frustration.

“—idiot! You’re an _idiot!_ Why the _hell_ didn’t you pick up?! You just walk out of the house and don’t tell us where you’re heading or why or when you’d get back, and you don’t pick up, what the hell do you think you’re _doing—_ ”

“My— my phone—” Jinjin stutters, heart groaning in his chest. “It died—”

“Do you know how worried we were? We went batshit _crazy_ in there, I was _thiiis_ close to snapping every door in half, and you didn’t— what if you— I don’t know, broke a leg or something? Or _worse?_ I can’t— Jinwoo, you can’t just _do_ that. You can’t make us panic like that, what the hell would we do without you? You’re the _leader—_ ”

MJ stops right there. He stares at Jinjin for a long few seconds before suddenly cradling his face.

“Hey, hey, no, shh, I wasn’t— no, no, don’t— it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

And Jinjin doesn’t understand why his hyung is suddenly speaking so softly, gently running his thumbs over his cheeks, and the pads of his fingers come away wet—

Oh.

“—I didn’t mean it that way, I swear, don’t cry, it’s okay—”

“It’s not okay,” Jinjin says, voice cracking. “How is this _okay—_ ”

“It will be okay,” MJ murmurs. He tugs him into a gentle hug, tucking Jinjin into his shoulder. “You, too. You’re gonna be okay. What’s that thing Sanha won’t shut up about— _‘this too shall pass.’_ This too shall pass.”

Jinjin closes his eyes. He buries his face into the soft fabric of MJ’s shirt and lets himself cry.

For a while, that’s all that happens; MJ rubs his back and shushes him softly, never pushing him away. It takes a few minutes until his frame no longer shakes and his hiccups turn to sniffles, and eventually, he’s the one to lean back first, head down and trying to hide behind a hand.

“…Hyung.”

“Hm?” MJ hums, pulling out his phone, a hand still wrapped around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shush.”

Jinjin bows his head slightly. He listens as MJ calls Eunwoo, tells him that he’ll be heading back with him soon, and he feels guilt swallow him whole when he hears a relieved sigh over the line. He doesn’t look up when MJ pockets his cell and turns to him.

“Let’s head back, yeah? You must be freezing—”

“Sorry.”

“Shut up, Jinwoo.” MJ tugs him up to his feet. “Come on, let’s go home.”

MJ keeps an arm around him the entire time, staying flush by his side as they walk the route back home. The night is quiet and cold, accompanied by their soft murmurs, and while it’s mostly MJ keeping up the conversation, Jinjin appreciates the break in the otherwise silence. They’re both freezing—MJ has never been good at keeping warm—and when Jinjin takes a proper look at his hyung, he huffs a small laugh.

“MJ-hyung…”

“If you apologise one more time—”

“You left in your onesie?”

MJ looks down at himself. “Well, I mean… it’s comfy.”

“It’s freezing.”

“Yes, it is, and you have a jacket. Give it to me.”

“No, I’m cold. Why didn’t you grab one before you left?”

“Because I care for you.”

“That makes no sense.”

They squabble and bicker right up to their door, and Jinjin only realises just how far they walked when MJ takes off his shoes with a quiet sigh and rolls his ankles. He steps through the door behind MJ, slipping off his shoes as well, and almost immediately there are four bodies tumbling into the living room and tripping over each other into a mess of flailing limbs and wide eyes.

And suddenly he’s swallowed up by warm hugs left and right, making him stumble back a little. Sanha is whining into his ear and Rocky is sobbing into his other ear and he knows that’s Binnie choking him with his biceps, and those are Eunwoo’s huge feet stepping on his own—

“Me too, me too!” MJ hollers, and his tiny body manages to tackle all of them to the floor.

_What a mess,_ Jinjin thinks, laughing as he’s buried beneath all the bodies dogpiling on his own. It takes them a good minute before he wheezes that he can’t breathe, and everyone scrambles off of him and immediately starts fussing over their leader. MJ steers him over to sit down in the living room and tells him to _stay, or I’ll beat you up and make you stay,_ and shouts for Sanha to _go grab twenty blankets or you’re sleeping with none._ Rocky grabs a laptop and huddles beside him on the floor and pulls up their youtube page, and he laughs when Rocky mutters _I’m not a sap, these just make me feel better, stop laughing at me,_ and leans into the sturdy body beside him.

Sanha comes and throws the blankets over them and shouts _we have ten blankets, not twenty, hyung!_ and dodges MJ’s uppercut. Bin and Eunwoo walk over then, with six bowls of piping hot ramen balanced dangerously in their hands, and ignore Jinjin’s protests of _but it’s 3am—_

It’s 3am. It’s _3am_ , and Jinjin is squashed between five bodies snuggled up against him and huddling beneath thick blankets in the living room, slurping on ramen and watching old videos of them being dumb. Bin’s head rests in his lap, the laptop perched on a pillow on his chest, and he almost spills his noodles over his face trying to click on the next video.

“I’ll handle it,” Jinjin sighs fondly.

Bin giggles. “Thanks, hyung. What would we do without our leader?”

Jinjin doesn’t say anything. The room is filled with the hum of their old ddocas when he ducks his head and mutters “I’m sorry,” and Sanha slams the pause button and starts rubbing his back.

They let him cry. They tell him there’s nothing to be sorry for and run fingers through his hair, murmuring quietly that everything is alright.

Then Bin says softly, “It’s Eunwoo’s hair, isn’t it? He hasn’t washed it in days.”

Sanha breaks out laughing and slaps a hand over his mouth. Eunwoo squawks in protest, punching Bin in the arm as they fall into a fit of giggles, and Jinjin can’t help but laugh as well.

“Yeah, it’s his hair,” he sniffles, and smiles when the room fills with laughter again.

And as Sanha resumes the video, MJ gives his arm a reassuring squeeze before turning back to the laptop. Jinjin settles against Rocky more comfortably, grateful for the way Rocky lets him rest his head on his shoulder, and closes his eyes.

_This too shall pass._

He takes a deep breath and lets himself believe.

When the manager walks into their dorm the next morning using his spare key, wondering where the boys were when they’re supposed to record their dance practice _half an hour ago,_ he stops short at the sight of six big boys huddled on the floor, covered in blankets and snoring away blissfully.

He’s about to wake them all up when he peers closer and sees Jinjin’s swollen, puffy eyes and the tear stains on his cheeks, and they miss the way their manager sighs quietly and sends a text to postpone the recording to tomorrow. He tugs the blanket a little higher over Jinjin’s shoulders, murmurs softly for him to rest up, then takes his leave.

And if he notices the way the others hover around Jinjin the next day, he doesn’t say anything about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS DOOOONE!!!
> 
> i sincerely apologise for the unnecessarily long wait, and if this turned out to be more-- i dunmo, anti-climatic, i hope you'll forgive me (and read my other fic instead haha) but i thank everyone who has dropped by to read this mess aka my Love for Park Jinwoo, and i hope you enjoyed the ride <3
> 
> this was hard to write, but i think we all have our off days, and may you find your own Jinjin or ASTRO to be there for you when you need one most.
> 
> may life be kind to you and that you have good days ahead! take care and stay safe <3
> 
>  
> 
> _@heybinnie on tumblr_

**Author's Note:**

> also on [tumblr](http://heybinnie.tumblr.com/post/156762713101/5-1) :)


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